It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Rio Tinto’s modernised Kitimat smelter. Photo by Rio Tinto Alcan.
Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) has commissioned a second tunnel for the Kemano power station that powers its Kitimat aluminum smelter in British Columbia, 27 years after work was halted on the project by the Mike Harcourt NDP government.
The second tunnel was originally part of the Kemano Completion Project, which was intended to add additional generating capacity to the Kemano generating station, 75 kilometres southeast of Kitimat.
That was when the aluminum smelter and Kemano power station were owned by Alcan, which Rio Tinto acquired in 2007.
The Kemano hydro generating station is powered with water drawn from Tahtsa Lake and moved through a 16-kilometre tunnel that slopes down to the power station. Alcan originally planned to expand the Kemano power station with a second tunnel and additional turbines to generate additional power.
Work had already started on the second tunnel’s construction when, in 1995, the Harcourt government halted the project over concerns that drawing additional water from the Nechako River system would negatively affect salmon. At the time, Alcan said it had already spent $500 million on construction of the second tunnel when it was halted.
According to Hatch, the project’s engineering and construction management contractor, the tunnel twinning project involved excavating 7.6 kilometres under a mountain and “refurbishing” another 8.4 kilometres of tunnel that had already been excavated in the 1990s.
Rio Tinto recently marked the official commissioning of the new 16-kilometre tunnel. Unlike the original Kemano Completion Project, the T2 project doesn’t involve any additional turbines or generating capacity.
The second tunnel was created for redundancy, the company said. The original tunnel is nearly 70 years old.
“The second tunnel does improve hydraulic efficiency, but only marginally increases generation capacity,” a spokesperson for Rio Tinto said in an email.
The second tunnel was completed in May, at a cost of C$1 billion, and has had several months of testing and commissioning.
“The completion of a second tunnel to supply water to the Kemano hydropower facility will ensure the long-term, sustainable production of low-carbon aluminium at our smelter in Kitimat,” Andrew Czornohalan, director of energy and watershed partnerships for Rio Tinto BC Works, said in a press release.
“This extraordinary construction feat is the result of the work of generations of workers over three decades. Partnerships with local communities and the Cheslatta Carrier Nation have been instrumental in the project’s success.”
The Kemano power station was built to power the Rio Tinto BC Works aluminum smelter in Kitimat in the 1950s. To provide water for the power station, the Kenney dam was built on the Nechako River.
The creation of the Nechako Reservoir through the Kenney dam has had negative impacts on salmon and sturgeon, First Nations say, because it has lowered water levels in the river system.
The Stellat’en and Saik’uz First Nations in recent years have gone to court to try to get the dam removed and have Nechako River’s water levels restored. Last year, the BC Supreme Court released a decision acknowledging the dam’s negative impacts on the Nechako River and, as a consequence, on the aboriginal rights of the Stellat’en and Saik’uz First Nations.
The court did not make any ruling requiring Rio Tinto to remove the dam or otherwise restore river levels. It did, however, acknowledge that senior governments have an obligation to protect aboriginal fishing rights and take “appropriate steps” to protect the river and its fish.
In an interview last year, Stellat’en Chief Robert Michell told BIV News that, at the very least, First Nations would like to see Rio Tinto reduce the amount of water it uses for generating power in order to maintain higher river levels.
He said the Kemano power station generates more power than is needed for the aluminum smelter in Kitimat. About 20% of the power is sold to BC Hydro. Michell said river levels might be restored somewhat if Rio Tinto reduced power generation by 20%.
B.C. First Nations seek action on sturgeon deaths, after court blamed declines on dam
VANCOUVER — Three British Columbia First Nations want the provincial and federal governments to live up to a nine-month-old court decision that said there is "overwhelming" evidence a dam on the Nechako River is killing endangered sturgeon.
They are highlighting the ruling after scientists asked the public in September for help in solving the mysterious deaths of 11 adult sturgeon found in the Nechako River in central B.C.
The Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship said the fish showed no visible external injuries and their deaths were not caused by disease, chemical exposure, angling or gillnet fisheries.
However, the Nechako First Nations claim mismanagement of the river and the dam reservoir are behind the deaths, saying quick action is needed to protect their rights and the sturgeon, which the court said were in “a decline so severe that the species is currently at risk of imminent extirpation.”
In the 1950s, the B.C. government authorized the Aluminum Company of Canada, now Rio Tinto Alcan, to build the Kenney Dam and a 233-kilometre-long reservoir on the river for hydropower generation to smelt its product.
Two of the Nechako First Nations, the Saik’uz and Stellat’en, sued the governments and Rio Tinto Alcan for the decades of losses to their fisheries, the lands, waters and rights.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in January that while Rio Tinto Alcan has complied with every contract it signed and abided by all terms on its water licence, the "failure" came from the governments who settled on insufficient requirements to protect the fish of the Nechako.
The judge ruled the Saik’uz and Stellat’en nations have an Aboriginal right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes in the Nechako River watershed and that both the provincial and federal governments have an obligation to protect that right. Justice Nigel Kent said it was a fact that the Kenney Dam's installation and operation were behind the "recruitment failure" of the Nechako white sturgeon, referring to the survival of fish larvae into the juvenile stage. Sturgeon, with their long snout and shark-like tail, can grow up to six metres long and live for over a century. The Nechako white sturgeon are a distinct population.
Priscilla Mueller, elected chief of Saik’uz First Nation, said the community living along the river has watched water flow decline over the last several years.
“Right now, the Nechako River received less than 30 per cent of the water that it would naturally receive. So, when you look at the river today, the water level is very low. It would be very difficult for the sturgeons to survive in very low water," she said.
“It’s not only affecting the sturgeons, but it’s also affecting our salmon and other fish habitats."
Mueller recalled fishing with her grandparents as a child and said the salmon and sturgeon thrived on the river.
“And now like in Saik’uz, I haven't heard of anybody getting a sturgeon for years since I was a child .… The (Kenney) Dam really affected the river in a big way,” said Mueller.
The Saik’uz, Stellat’en and Nadleh Whut'en First Nations said in a news release that the recent deaths are the “latest blow” to the endangered species, which numbers between 300 and 600.
“Given the population’s conservation status, these mortalities have very serious implications for the Nechako white sturgeon’s ability to recover, and will drive the population closer to extinction,” they said.
The nations have since filed an appeal of the January ruling, seeking a court order for the restoration of flows on the Nechako that would re-establish "the natural functions of the river.”
Mueller said it’s not just in the First Nations’ interests to restore the river — the health of the river would benefit the whole community on the waterway.
The nations said they now look forward to discussions with all parties to create a new water management regime.
Mueller said one of the first steps is to invite Rio Tinto to their community to see who they are and how they live.
"So, for our community, building relationships is very important. And when you think about a relationship, it's not just one-sided. If we were gonna co-manage the river, that means all parties need to be involved,” said Mueller.
The Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship said no more dead sturgeon have recently been observed on the Nechako River, which it saw as a “positive update.”
“We are cautiously optimistic that this mortality event is over. The province is focusing on understanding the cause and what can be done to prevent potential future events," the ministry said in an email statement.
No cause of death was immediately apparent, but analyses and lab tests would continue, with water temperature and oxygen stress studies also underway through a partnership with the University of British Columbia, said the ministry.
"The province understands there is interest from First Nations and stakeholders in a water release facility at the Kenney Dam in the Nechako watershed," the ministry said, adding that it was discussing sturgeon stewardship "to ensure it meets the interests of Nechako First Nations."
Fisheries and Oceans Canada said in a written statement it had been engaged with Indigenous groups, Rio Tinto, B.C. and others in Nechako River white sturgeon recovery initiatives since 2000. A key objective was to ensure Rio Tinto operations “do not impact Nechako white sturgeon and facilitate their recovery.”
Andrew Czornohalan, director of power and projects at Rio Tinto BC Works, said in an email statement that the company is “deeply saddened” by the sturgeons’ deaths and it is working with partners, including the Nechako white sturgeon recovery initiative and the province.
“We are aware of the sturgeon mortality that occurred this summer in the Nechako River and in other rivers in B.C., including the Fraser River. We have offered technical capacity via the water engagement initiative to identify the possible causes of this unprecedented event."
He said the company has contributed over $13 million to the recovery initiative since 2000.
Over the past two years, Rio Tinto has been working with the First Nations and local communities to improve the water flow into the Nechako River while still monitoring for flood risks in Vanderhoof, a city in northern B.C., said Czornohalan.
“We will continue to collaborate with First Nations, governments and other stakeholders to review all aspects of the Nechako Reservoir management process in hopes of improving the health of the river and ensuring Rio Tinto can remain a driver of economic opportunities in B.C.,” said Czornohalan.
He said on top of powering its smelting plant, the dam provides hydropower for around 350,000 residents in B.C.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2022.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
‘Trying to save our fish’: B.C. First Nations appeal a court ruling in an attempt to restore the Nechako River
Seventy years ago, B.C. approved a hydroelectric project that would irreversibly alter an entire watershed and forever change the lives of First Nations living along the Nechako River.
The Kenney dam was built in the early 1950s to provide power to an aluminum smelter on the coast, owned by the Aluminum Company of Canada, now Rio Tinto Alcan. The provincial government at the time openly and actively courted the development through an aptly named piece of legislation called, An Act to Promote the Industrial Development of the Province.
Permits were issued, First Nations communities removed, construction completed and 890 square kilometres flooded to create the reservoir, reducing the natural flow of the Nechako River by 60 to 70 per cent.
Decades later, the Saik’uz and Stellat’en First Nations took Rio Tinto Alcan and the province to court. They wanted to force the company to restore some of the river’s flow and salvage what little remains of vital habitat for endangered white sturgeon and struggling salmon populations
After three years of hearings, their case was dismissed by the B.C. Supreme Court in January — but it paved the way for an appeal process. The judge affirmed the two nations inhabited the land prior to colonization and therefore Saik’uz and Stellat’en members have a fundamental “right to fish the Nechako watershed for food, social and ceremonial purposes.” The court also confirmed the dam and ongoing provincial regulation of water levels continues to have a direct and negative impact on fish populations. Their appeal was filed in late July.
“We’re not going to quit,” former Saik’uz elected chief and current councillor Jackie Thomas told The Narwhal in an interview. She explained how the fish provide both food security and spiritual and cultural connections. “We’ve taken a spiritual blow for 100 years here in B.C. … I will use every means necessary for my community to get what we need.”
Thomas, now a grandmother, is one of the named plaintiffs on the case which first went to trial in 2019.
“Truthfully, I think I’m the third generation on this file,” she said. “Before me, there was my uncle and before him, that was my grandma.”
It’s clear the government has a legal obligation to protect First Nations’ right to fish, Darwin Hanna, founding partner at Callison and Hanna law firm and member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation, told The Narwhal. The challenge, he said, is not so much agreeing the dam has an ongoing impact, it’s getting the government to do something about it.
“How do you provide for restitution and reconciliation for the interference with the fishery, the waterways and interference of Rights and Title?” Hanna said in an interview. “I think it’s going to require some real political shifting of how they approach these cases because really it’s a history of denial, denial, denial.”
While B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nigel P. Kent rejected the nations’ case, he acknowledged the “bleak and intractable” legacy of colonization, which includes B.C.’s approval of the project. The appeal centres on how the court ruling leaves Saik’uz and Stellat’en with no recourse, despite Kent agreeing with the nations on all the facts at hand.
“After 189 days of trial … the [nations] proved that the diversion of waters from the Nechako by Alcan is causing serious decline of the fisheries their Indigenous communities have relied on since time immemorial — to the near extirpation of sturgeon, and, with salmon now a ‘mere shadow of its former abundance’,” the opening statement of the appeal notes. “The identity, culture and way of life of the appellants — the very core of what … the Constitution promises to protect — are bound up and lost in the decline of the fisheries.”
According to the nations’ legal counsel, Justice Kent made a legal error by not requiring the province to order Rio Tinto to put more water back into the river, despite B.C.’s constitutional obligation to protect the nations’ rights. Kent said that if anyone is liable, it’s the Crown, but noted that Rio Tinto is operating under provincial permits so the court couldn’t hold the company responsible for the damage. In the same breath, he said that because the court couldn’t tell the company what to do, it was unable to make a “declaration” ordering the province to amend the permits.
“This reasoning is internally contradictory,” the appeal notes, pointing to the landmark 2021 Blueberry River First Nation decision on Treaty Rights which included a “declaration that the province may not continue to authorize activities that unjustifiably infringe the treaty right or breach the Crown’s duties.”
That kind of declaration, the appeal argues, can also be made for Sai’kuz and Stellat’en.
Hanna said this case could chart a path forward for “all First Nations” that have been similarly impacted by past development, noting the underlying question is how to “decolonize these industrial complexes.”
“This case is precedent setting, and so there’s a lot riding on it,” he said.
Notably, the two neighbouring nations are not asking the courts to destroy the dam or restore the river to its original state. Instead, they hope to come to an arrangement in which Rio Tinto would work with the province to establish a flow regime that helps restore natural ecological functions.
To this end, Saik’uz and Stellat’en asked the courts for an injunction against Rio Tinto to ensure the company regulates the flow of water in a way that does not continue to impact downstream fisheries.
The hydroelectric facility reverses the natural direction of the water, sending it west via a 16 kilometre tunnel through the Coast Mountains to Kemano, where it plunges over a 790 metre precipice to waiting turbines. The Kemano power station produces more electricity than Rio Tinto needs to operate its smelter and the company sells its surplus to BC Hydro.
“Why can’t they just put that difference back down this side of the mountain?” Thomas asked.
Rio Tinto told The Narwhal the Kemano power station has a capacity of 896 megawatts, around 80 per cent of which is used to power the smelter. BC Hydro data on its agreements with independent power producers notes Kemano produces a total of 3,307 gigawatt hours annually, which means it sells around 660,000 megawatt hours to the public utility — roughly the annual amount of energy consumed by around 60,000 households.
Neither BC Hydro nor Rio Tinto would disclose the dollar value of this surplus energy, which the public utility buys through an electricity purchase agreement, established in 2007 and locked in until 2034. According to provincial documents accessed through open information policy, BC Hydro pays the company between $64 and $88 per megawatt hour. A conservative calculation puts the revenue Rio Tinto earns from selling the electricity at upwards of $45 million per year.
For Thomas, it’s not about the money, it’s about the fish.
“Our ecosystem has value, our people have value. It’s not always about dollars and cents,” she said. “We’re not wealthy, we’re not well-off people. And we still depend on this hunting and fishing and gathering — that’s what supplements us financially.”
Saik’uz average income is less than half the provincial average, according to 2016 census data. Thomas said the community had to fundraise through the likes of bottle drives and bake sales to cover travel expenses for members who wanted to attend the court hearings.
There is an urgent need to “start doing some remediation work now, before we actually extirpate the last three of the six fish stocks that we have left,” she explained.
“Basically, that’s what it is: trying to save our fish.”
In a statement provided to The Narwhal, Rio Tinto noted it contributed $13 million to white sturgeon conservation, through a recovery initiative bringing together federal and provincial biologists, First Nations, industry experts, local and municipal governments and more. The company also said it committed $50 million to a fund set up in the late 1990s as part of an agreement between Rio Tinto and the province.
“Improving the health of the Nechako River is a goal we all share and we are actively engaged with First Nations communities on this priority,” a Rio Tinto spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. “We will continue to collaborate with First Nations, governments and other stakeholders to review all aspects of the Nechako Reservoir management process.”
But Thomas said support from the company has never come easy.
“They have not willingly done the right thing — they’ve always had to be forced,” she said. “This company’s really good at dividing and conquering. That’s why we can’t get this water over the line, getting more water for our river and our sturgeon, our salmon. Those are the two main ones right now but the whole ecosystem is needing rehabilitation.”
“We understand it’s not going to be the same river because it’s been through 70 years of friggin’ change,” she added.
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Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal
Canada’s “Jekyll-and-Hyde” Masquerade as Nation that Supposedly Supports Pacifism and Progressive Principles
How Canada’s military-industrial complex sucks up to and serves the American one
by Jeremy Kuzmarov / August 1st, 2022
LONG READ
On July 8, the Canadian government led by Justin Trudeau announced that it would send 38 General Dynamics-made armored vehicles to Ukraine as part of $500 million in military aid allotted to Ukraine that had been attached to Canada’s budget in April.
That budget saw a $6 billion increase in military spending from the $26.4 billion total in 2021, which was to be used to boost cyber security and strengthen the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a joint U.S.-Canadian defense organization.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said that “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reminded us that our own peaceful democracy—like all the democracies of the world—depends ultimately on the defense of hard power….The world’s dictators should never mistake our civility for pacifism. We know that freedom does not come for free, and that peace is guaranteed only by our readiness to fight for it.”
These comments display the priorities of Canada’s current leadership, which is committed to boosting defense spending by $18 billion over the next five years—when it was already ranked 12th in military spending—and to alliance with the United States against Russia and almost all of its other enemies.
Trudeau has also signed a $15-billion agreement to export light armored vehicles (LAVs) produced by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ontario, to Saudi Arabia, which sustains the U.S. Empire by trading its oil in U.S. dollars.
A Montreal-based journalist, Engler has written 11 books that are mostly critical of Canadian foreign policy. In this one, he shows that the Canadian military has a long and bloody record going back to its subjugation of Canada’s native population and support for British imperial interventions in sub-Saharan Africa.
After World War II, the Canadian military became more tightly integrated with that of the United States, supplying troops for imperial interventions like in the Korean War, while developing its own military-industrial complex that served as an adjunct of the U.S.
The Canadian Army originated from the British army which conquered North America from the Indians and French with tremendous brutality. Halifax became Britain’s primary naval base in North America after the violent displacement of Mi’kmaq First Nation people who had their heads placed on stakes when they tried to resist.
The father of the Canadian army, William D. Otter, was known for his merciless suppression of Cree and Assiniboine warriors in Saskatchewan.
Otter went on to command Canadian forces in South Africa in the Boer war, which became intimately involved in some of the nastier aspects including search, expel and burn missions.
Canadian infantrymen fighting the Boers in South Africa in 1902. [Source: warmuseum.ca]
William Heneker, a native of Sherbrooke, Quebec, and a Royal Military College (RMC) of Canada trained officer who led expeditions to conquer West Africa for the British, published an influential British training manual which noted how “the great thing is to impress savages with the fact that they are the weaker, and…enforce the will of the white man.”
Nationalist mythology presents Canada as a uniquely pacifist and benevolent country; however, in World War I, which Canada joined out of its loyalty to the British Empire, Canadian troops developed a terrible reputation for violence against prisoners.
After Canadian troops invaded Russia in 1918 with five other countries including the U.S. in an attempt to quell the Bolshevik Revolution, they were rebuked by locals for the “calm skills with which they used shrapnel as a short-range weapon against [Bolshevik] foot soldiers.”
Canada’s Siberian expeditionary force in Vladivostok in winter 1919. [Source: thecanadianencyclopedia.ca]
When Canadian troops were found guilty of murdering or raping Korean civilians during the Korean War, they were usually released from prison within a year or two at most.
Fifty years later in Afghanistan—where Canadian troops fired an astounding 4.7 million bullets and deployed white phosphorus—Captain Ray Wiss praised Canadian troops as “the best at killing people…we are killing a lot more of them [Afghans] than they are of us, and we have been extraordinarily successful recently…we have managed to kill between 10 and 20 Taliban each day.”
In 1910, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was established with the aim of reinforcing the British Empire. It was repeatedly deployed in the British Caribbean and in 1932 lent support to a military-coup government in El Salvador that brutally suppressed peasant and Indigenous rebellions.
First recruiting poster for Royal Canadian Navy. [Source: rcinet.ca]
Thirty years later, in 1962, the Canadian Navy participated in the U.S. blockade of Cuba, while assuming responsibility for surveillance of Soviet submarines. When 23,000 U.S. troops invaded the Dominican Republic in April 1965, a Canadian warship was sent to Santo Domingo, in the words of Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, “to stand by in case it is required.”
Subsequently, the RCN planned and exercised an invasion of Jamaica that was designed to secure the Alcan bauxite facilities from rioters.
In the 1990s, the RCN sent warships to the Middle East to enforce brutal sanctions on Iraq.
RCN vessels also enforced a naval blockade of Libya and kept the Port of Misrata open during the 2011 Operation Odyssey Dawn, a U.S.-NATO operation that resulted in the overthrow and lynching of Libya’s nationalist leader, Muammar Qaddafi.
During the Korean War in the 1950s, RCN destroyers transported Canadian troops and hurled 130,000 rounds at Korean targets, while destroying trains and tunnels on Korea’s coastal railway.
A year before the outbreak of the war, the RCN sent a naval vessel to China as Maoist forces were on the verge of victory in China’s civil war. Part of the objective was to show the U.S. and UK that Canada was a “willing partner in the emerging North Atlantic alliance.”
Royal Canadian Navy in Korean waters, 1952-1954. [Source: legionmagazine.com]
Canada has been a faithful member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since its inception in 1949, currently providing it with about $165 million annually. Canada’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Council, Kerry Buck, boasted in 2018 that “Canada has participated and contributed to every NATO mission, operation and activity since NATO’s founding.”
Many of these missions were highly dubious, including a) NATO’s creation of underground anti-communist armies in Western Europe that carried out black-flag terrorist attacks that were blamed on communists in order to discredit them; b) NATO’s bombing of Kosovo in 1999; c) its 20-year war on Afghanistan; and d) its attack on Libya in which seven Canadian Air Force jets carried out bombing missions.
Canadian fighter pilots and ground crew in Libya during Operation Odyssey Dawn. [Source: rabble.ca]
In the 1990s, Canada strongly supported NATO enalrgement to the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary and has sent troops to Latvia and Ukraine as part of a belligerent policy toward Russia that has provoked a new Cold War and might yet cause a world war.
Canada and the CIA
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Canada’s Defence Research Board (DRB) had a formal relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which paid for classified research that was carried out by Canadian academics.
This research included CIA-funded psychological studies that were framed as a response to Communist Chinese brainwashing during the Korean War.
Canadian, British and U.S. officials met to coordinate this research at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montreal on June 1, 1951, where the chairman of the DRB, Donald O. Hebb, suggested that the research focus on confessions, menticide and intervention in the individual mind, which was endorsed by other attendees.
Hebb subsequently received a secret $10,000 ($50,000 in today’s money) grant from the DRB to study sensory deprivation—or isolation of human beings—which was used as an interrogation technique.
The U.S. government and CIA subsequently put up half a million dollars ($2 million today) for McGill psychologist Ewen Cameron to build on Hebb’s psychological isolation research in ghastly ways—including forced isolation and administration of electroshocks on individuals and large doses of LSD and other hallucinogens.
The expressed objective of the research, carried out at Montreal’s Allen Memorial Institute from the early 1950s until 1965, was to erase existing memories and re-program individuals’ psyches. Hebb’s and Cameron’s research ultimately influenced the CIA’s 1963 KUBARAK Counterintelligence Interrogation handbook, laying the foundation for the CIA’s two-stage psychological torture methods.
Canada has assisted the U.S. allowing its landmass and many facilities to be used to test various weapons in the deadly U.S. arsenal, including chemical and biological weapons.
According to John Clearwater, author of the 2006 book Just Dummies: Cruise Missile Testing in Canada, “no matter how bizarre the weapon, no matter how dangerous the test, no matter how contrary the weapon to stated foreign policy objectives, Canada has never refused a single testing request from the United States.”
Starting in World War II, a super-secret germ warfare research facility run jointly by the U.S. and Canada operated at Grosse ÃŽsle, 50 kilometers from Quebec City, which produced rinderpest (a cattle virus) and anthrax spores.
During the Korean War, the Guilford Reed-led Defence Research Board laboratory at Queens studied mosquito vectors and how to produce mosquito colonies, and helped turn shellfish toxins into weapons that were subsequently used by the CIA to try to assassinate foreign leaders like Fidel Castro.
Dr. Guilford Reed in front of Queens University laboratory which helped develop weapons for the CIA that was used to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. [Source: queensu.ca]
Other biological weapons that the U.S. deployed against Cuba were also tested in Canada and, in July 1953, U.S. army planes secretly sprayed 6 kg of zinc cadmium sulfide, a carcinogen, on Winnipeg, and eleven years later did the same on Medicine Hat, Alberta.
When uproar developed in the U.S. over the testing and development of chemical and biological weapons, much of the research was transferred to a secret military research facility north of Suffield, Alberta, where the U.S. Army tested 25-pound shells filled with highly toxic sarin.
Between 1956 and 1984, more than one billion germs of Agent Orange, Purple and White were sprayed on or near a Canadian military base in Gagetown, New Brunswick.
Canadian scientists generally played a key role in helping to develop defoliants and herbicides sprayed by the U.S. in Vietnam and the British in Malaya. Among them was Otto Maass, Chemical Biological Weapons (CBW) director at Canada’s Defence Research Board and the Chairman of McGill University’s Chemistry Department from 1937 to 1955.[1]
During the Vietnam War, Canadian manufacturers sold the U.S. military significant amounts of polystyrene, a major component in napalm—a flammable liquid agent that burns the flesh.
The latter was produced during the Korean War at Canada’s Defence Research Chemical laboratories. Canadian scientists working at the time at Suffield discovered a thickening agent for flamethrower fuels (napalm), and worked on development of a flamethrower to deliver this new and improved fuel from tanks.
Napalm strikes in Trang Bang, Vietnam, in June 1972—made possible by Canadian scientists. [Source: apjjf.org]
More Complicity in War
Overall, Canadian industry sold some $12.5 billion in ammunition, aircraft parts, napalm and other war materials to South Vietnam and the U.S. for use during the Vietnam War.
American planes that dropped bombs and napalm were often guided by Canadian-made Marconi-Doppler navigation systems and used bombing computers built in Rexdale, Ontario.
The bombs could have been armed with dynamite shipped from Valleyfield, Quebec. Defoliants came from Naugatuck Chemicals in Elmira, Ontario, and air-to-ground rockets were furnished by the Ingersoll Machine and Tool Company of Ingersoll, Ontario. On the ground, American infantry and artillery units were supplied with de Havilland (DHC-4) Caribous built at Milton, Ontario.
Canadian products also included Beta boots for the troops and the famous green berets of the Special Forces which came from Dorothea Knitting Mills in Toronto.
1972 Green Beret hat manufactured at Dorothea Knitting Mills in Toronto. [Source: worthpoint.com]
Supporting the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Program
Even though Canada is not officially one of the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons, for years it has supported the U.S.’s nuclear weapons program.
Uranium from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories and which was refined in Port Hope, Ontario, was used in the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Subsequently, Saskatchewan and Ontario mines supplied a considerable proportion of the uranium used for the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
A miner hauls a car of uranium-bearing ore at Eldorado Mine of Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territories, in 1930. [Source: cbc.ca]
In 1952, Canadian officials permitted the U.S. Strategic Air Command to use Canadian air space for training flights of nuclear-armed aircraft. Since 1965, nuclear-armed U.S. submarines have also fired torpedoes at Canadian army maritime bases and test ranges.
Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968-1979; 1980-1984) claimed to be suffocating the arms race but allowed the U.S. to test cruise missiles designed for first-strike nuclear attacks at a Canadian army base in Cold Lake—a policy continued by Brian Mulroney (1984-1993).
In September 1950, the U.S. began storing nuclear weapons at Goose Bay, Newfoundland, while in 1963, Lester Pearson’s government (1963-1968) brought Bomarc missiles to Canada and gave Washington effective control over them.
Pearson had taken power after his Tory predecessor John Diefenbaker (1957-1963) had refused to station the Bomarcs in Canada, and was then threatened by Washington and fell from power in turn.
Canada received significant U.S. backing in establishing its signals intelligence (SIGNIT) capacities. A National Security Agency (NSA) history of the U.S.-Canada SIGNIT relationship released by Edward Snowden labeled Canada a “highly valued second party partner,” which offers “resources for advanced collection, processing and analysis, and has opened covert sites at the request of NSA, CSE [Communication Security Establishment] shares with NSA their unique geographic access to areas unavailable to the U.S.”
Canada is a member of the Five Eyes surveillance network. [Source: canadiandimension.com]
America First Foreign Policy
Canada has hundreds of military accords with the U.S. The most important, NORAD, has deepened the U.S. military footprint in Canada and committed Canada to acquiring U.S. nuclear weapons for air defense.
In 1965, NORAD’s mandate was expanded to include surveillance and assessment for U.S. commands worldwide, and in the 1980s and 1990s, it assisted in the War on Drugs.
Canadians posted to NORAD have helped research space weaponry while NORAD has also cooperated in missile defense work.
Many leading Canadian generals have trained in U.S. Army war colleges as the Canadian armed forces increasingly strives for what it calls “interoperability” with the Americans.
A March 2017 dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa to the State Department was tellingly titled “Canada Adopts ‘America First’ Foreign Policy.”
Chrystia Freeland earned her appointment as foreign minister, according to a memo uncovered through a Freedom of Information request, in large part because “of her strong U.S. contacts”; her number one priority was “working closely” with Washington.
Chrystia Freeland, center, and Justin Trudeau, right, with Donald Trump. [Source: thegrayzone.com]
The depth of the Canada-U.S. military alliance is such that, if the U.S. attacked Canada as in the War of 1812, it would be extremely difficult for the Canadian Armed Forces to defend Canadian soil.
According to Engler, Canada’s defense sector ignores the threat from the U.S. because it is not oriented toward protecting Canada from aggression; rather Canada’s “defense community” is aligned with the U.S. Empire’s quest for global dominance.
U.S. invades Canada in futuristic sci-fi series We Stand on Guard. Canada has no protection if this scenario comes true. [Source: usatoday.com]
U.S. Pushes for Higher Military Spending
After former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci was appointed U.S. ambassador to Canada in 2001, he revealed that his only instruction was to press for increased military spending.
During a 2016 speech to the Canadian parliament, then-U.S. President Barack Obama further called on the Canadian government to increase its military spending while, in 2018, Donald Trump sent Justin Trudeau a letter calling on Canada to improve its military preparedness.
A Rogue State
Canada’s status as a rogue state alongside the U.S. is evident in its non-compliance with a UN treaty outlawing mercenaries and the UN’s prohibition of nuclear weapons, which is supported by two-thirds of UN member states. Since 2007, Canada has also abstained on a series of UN resolutions concerning depleted uranium munitions.
Protesters ask why Canada has not signed onto UN treaty banning nuclear weapons. [Source: thecanadafiles.com]
Canadian companies meanwhile have followed their American counterparts in selling weapons to countries that have carried out significant human rights atrocities including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Israel.
Canada has also participated in illegal U.S. coups like in February 2004 when Canadian Special Forces “secured” the airport from which U.S. Marines forced Haiti’s elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—a populist who tried to enact laws to benefit Haiti’s poor—onto a flight to the Central African Republic.
Canadian Special Forces guarding Port-au-Prince airport during Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s kidnapping in February 2004. [Source: reddit.com]
Canada’s Military-Industrial Complex
Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about a military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address applies all too well in Canada.
Canadian companies produce cutting-edge weapon systems and technologies that the U.S. military requires, construct and manage U.S. overseas military installations,[2] and even train the operators of Predator and Reaper drones.
The primary arms-industry lobbying group in Canada is the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), which has 20 staff in Ottawa. It has adopted an intense engagement plan that includes hundreds of meetings with members of parliament, key ministers and the Prime Minister’s office.
Protest outside arms trade show in Ottawa in 2019. [Source: worldbeyondwar.org]
Top U.S. arms makers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE, General Dynamics, L-3 Communications and Raytheon all have Canadian subsidiaries and offices in Ottawa a few blocks from parliament.
Canada’s economy is dependent on shipbuilding, aerospace, high-tech and mining industries, which all benefit from higher military budgets and tighter integration with the U.S.
The only solution at this time is for American and Canadian peace activists to link up to challenge the military-industrial complex in both countries.
Detailed plans are needed to convert the U.S. and Canadian economies away from militarism and retrain workers and engineers who currently work in the defense sectors.
Restrictions on lobbying and foreign military sales should also be an urgent policy demand along with abolishing NORAD and NATO.
Peace mural in Nova Scotia. [Source: vowpeace.org]
Additionally, the peace movement should work to try to end the glorification of all things military and boycott Hollywood films, government propaganda initiatives and educational institutions that do so, and which dehumanize racial minorities and enemy countries like Russia and their leaders.
Yves Engler writes at the end of his book that “a peaceful world is possible if we want and work for it.” This is indeed true but it will require nothing less than a social revolution to achieve.